


Mistakes We Knew We Were Making

by eternaleponine



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Lee Adama POV, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-18
Updated: 2011-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-20 12:55:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of Kara's death, the two men who loved her look for comfort and find it in each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

I stare at the picture in my hand, knowing that I should hang it up, but not able to bring myself to do it. Not yet. Kara is gone; I know that better than anyone. I heard her last words. I saw her Viper go out like a firework. It's all I see and hear when I close my eyes and try to sleep, even two weeks later.

I need to let her go, and hanging up that picture, next to Kat like she asked, is the first step. My chest aches as I look at her smiling face, two-dimensional, flat in my hand. Breathing hurts, and I wonder if maybe, finally, I'll cry. I've been on the edge of it since it happened, but haven't given in. I'm never alone; they think I need to be looked after. They think I'm fragile, that I'll shatter.

It's time to move on, though. It was time to move on a long time ago, but I didn't, couldn't, wouldn't. I have a wife, for gods' sake. She loves me, and has stood by me through all of this, and now that the biggest thing that stood between us is gone, I should be able to love her back like she deserves.

I can't do it. Can't let go, can't put up the picture, can't give Dee what I promised when I married her.

"Major?"

"Yeah."

I follow Racetrack out to the hangar deck, and there's Sam, stumbling on top of a Viper with a bottle in his hand, flipping a coin and calling out 'Heads!' apparently for the fourth or fifth time. I haven't seen him since it happened. I wasn't the one who gave him the news; I don't know who did. Maybe I should have been. Would it have been easier coming from me, who loved her too?

He knew that, didn't he? There was no way he didn't. Was there?

I climb up after him. "Hey there, buddy," I say, as gently as I can, reaching for him. In the past two weeks, there have been times when I've wished I wasn't CAG, that I didn't have that responsibility. Seeing him like this, though, I'm grateful that I had something else to focus on. He's got nothing. There's nothing for him to fight against up here. She was... she was his wife. That meant something, like Dee should mean something but I can't make her mean as much as Kara did. Does. Did.

"Let's just get down and get some sleep," I urge, taking his arm, but he pulls away. He's falling apart in front of me and I don't know what to do, but trying to talk him down isn't working, and next thing I know, he's on the ground.

"Frak!" I climb down the ladder as fast as I can. "Is he okay?"

I check him over, and can't see anything obviously wrong but it looked like he twisted something when he fell. He's looking up at me, and it hurts to meet his eyes. "She's still alive, right?"

I've been shot, and looking at him right now hurts worse. "She's gone, Sam."

"I know." He's trying not to cry, and I shield him from everyone else looking on, blocking him with my body so they can't see him breaking down. Not that anyone would say anything about it; the guy lost his frakking wife.

"Come on," I say to him, reaching to help him up. As soon as he's vertical, I realize that whatever he did to himself, he can't walk. I wrap my arms more tightly around him to keep him up, since he can't balance very well in general, much less on one foot. "Someone help me carry him," I say.

He hooks one arm around my shoulders and the other around one of the deckhands. I take the injured leg and we carry him to sickbay like that, cradled between us. His head droops against his shoulder, toward me.

"Just a little farther," I tell him. "Don't pass out on me now or we might drop you on your head." Our progress through the corridors is awkward, but we make it. We get waved to a bed where we can set him down. I thank the deckhand and let him go back, but I stay. Someone has to deal with Doc Cottle, and Sam isn't in any fit state to do it.

"What happened?" Cottle asks, not even bothering to get up from where he's sitting, smoking a cigarette.

"He fell from a Viper, did something to his left leg," I say. "He's drunk," I add, but it's as obvious as Sam announcing that he thought he'd fallen, after he'd hit the deck.

"I'll take a look." He stubs out his cigarette and gets up, brushing past me to examine the patient.

I don't know what to do. He doesn't need me here, but I'm not on duty so I don't have anywhere else to be. I turn to walk away, but Sam reaches out, grabs my sleeve. I had thought he'd passed out. I turn to look at him, and he doesn't say anything, but his eyes are pleading.

So I stay while Doc diagnoses the leg is broken and puts a cast on it, and gives him something for the pain, which knocks him out. I consider asking him for a dose. I'm in pain, too, after all, even if the wounds aren't visible. Instead I just drag over a chair and sit next to the bed of the man that maybe I should hate, but I don't. Especially not now. Not when he's probably the only one who can really understand.

It's not his fault that Kara chose him, even if the way she went about it was completely frakked up. She hadn't been mine to begin with; one night and drunken declarations shouted to the sky wasn't going to change that.

None of it matters now. She's gone, and we are left behind. Whether she loved him or me or both or neither doesn't make any difference. Now, in her absence, we are the same.

I brush back the hair at his temple, watching over him like Dee watched over me after I'd been shot, and I don't know if it's significant or not. But neither of us wants to be alone, even while unconscious (or maybe I'm projecting) so I stay where I am.

I wake up to a hand shaking my shoulder. "You need to go," Doc Cottle grumbles. "You can't sleep here." My eyes go to Sam, and Cottle must see, because he says. "He'll be fine. It's just a broken bone."

"He lost—" I begin, but he cuts me off.

"Can you bring her back?" he asks.

A lump rises in my throat, making it almost impossible to speak. "No," I manage finally.

"Then what good are you doing him, or yourself?" Cottle looks at me directly, and I look away. I push back the chair, stiff from the awkward position I'd dozed off in, and leave. I wonder if Sam will even remember I was there when he wakes up. Maybe Doc Cottle is right and I'm not doing him any good. He needs to move on in whatever way he can, and maybe I would hold him back, reminding him of what he had and doesn't. But maybe that's why I want to be near him. He's my one real link to her; my father doesn't count. He doesn't know what it was like, being in love with her.

I make my way slowly through the corridors, not wanting to go back yet to the room where my wife is waiting. Asleep, I hope, but I can't be sure and the last thing I want to do now is talk. She hasn't forced me to, not yet. Eventually, though, she's going to expect me to get over it. For her, it's a beginning. We can start our life together with nothing in the way, like we haven't been married for over a year now.

I wonder if that's what she thinks, that things will just suddenly work between us because Kara is gone. If anything, I feel farther away from her now than I ever have. Without Kara pushing me away, what's pushing me towards her?

Eventually, though, I have to go back. I have to sleep somewhere, at some point, and it'll only get worse the longer I avoid it. I pull open the hatch and try to sneak in as quietly as I can, but it's like she has some kind of sixth sense. Even though she's in bed, she sits up as soon as I come in. "Lee?"

"Hey. Go back to sleep."

"Are you coming to bed?"

I get a drink and toss it back. "In a minute."

She watches me as I strip off my fatigues, and she's still watching me when I come back from going to the head. I join her in the bed, because I don't have a choice, and I accept it when she kisses me, although I don't do anything that might encourage her to try and take it further.

"Where were you?" she asks, an edge in her voice.

"There was a situation on the hangar deck I had to deal with," I say. It's not a lie, but I don't go into detail.

She sighs. "Right." I don't know if she doesn't believe me, but I can't make myself care. I just lay down with my back to her and close my eyes, hoping she'll let it go, praying for sleep.

I can feel her eyes on me, staring at the back of my head. The tension is palpable; she knows I'm not asleep. In the end, though, she just leans down and kisses my temple, then lays down with her back to mine.

I know I'm supposed to roll over and put my arm around her, reassure her that we're all right, that I love her, all of that, but I can't make myself do it. It's selfish, but I can't make myself care right now. The only person I'm thinking about now is Kara. The absence of her consumes me.

Strike that. I'm thinking about Sam, too, and maybe in my head that's just Kara by proxy, but I hate the fact that I left him there. He was doped up and unconscious but so frakking what? He might wake up and who's going to tell him things are going to be okay? It sure won't be Doc Cottle, and he doesn't have anyone else.

At least, I assume he doesn't have anyone else, and maybe that's not true. Maybe he's got plenty of friends, maybe he's even found another lover since Kara dumped him long before she died, even though I've heard she still calls him over from whatever ship he's staying on to hook up sometimes. No one knows he's here, though, do they?

I try to tell myself that he's not my responsibility. I have plenty of those without taking him on. I'm an idiot for even trying the idea on.

I don't sleep, and in the morning I frak up the briefing for the pilots, and Helo has to correct me. I'm distracted, out of my mind, and I can't get myself together. It's my bad luck that my father overhears it, and next thing I know, I've been demoted from CAG to running security for Gaius Baltar's new lawyer, since the old one got killed. It's not a job I want, but when the Admiral of the fleet tells you to do something, no isn't really a valid answer.

For a few days, the job consumes me. Romo Lampkin isn't the easiest guy to deal with, and I find myself getting caught up in the case that he's preparing, even though I'm only supposed to be a security. When we catch the bomber, my father decides that Lampkin will be fine on his own, and wants me back as CAG, but I refuse, which goes over about as well as I expect, but it's not often that we get second chances, especially not now with the world ending. I've always been interested in law, but chose the military instead. I want the chance, and this time, this time I don't let him take it away from me.

"I'm tired of giving you orders!" he tells me, and that's it. If he won't make my reinstatement an order, then I will do what I feel is right. I will be where I feel I can do the most good.

But first... first I have some unfinished business.

I go to the memorial hallway, Kara's picture in my pocket. This time I don't let myself hesitate. I take it out and pin it to the wall, next to Kat's where she wanted it. I step back to look at it, try to reconcile myself, try to say goodbye. I don't know how long I'm standing there, but I guess it's not more than a minute or two, when I hear someone approach. I glance over and see it's Sam, hobbling in on crutches.

"Hey," I say, hoping my voice doesn't come out too choked. "How's the leg?"

"You mean my lucky break?"

He's making jokes, even here, even now. It's good, I think. Better laugh than cry, right?

"Gave me a reason not to come up here." He's quiet for a moment, then adds, "Sooner or later, you run out of excuses."

"It's hard to let her go," I agree. I start to walk away, because he deserves a chance to be there with her, or a two-dimensional facsimile of her, anyway. To be there with her memory, to be alone with his grief.

"Lee." His voice is soft, but I hear him clearly, and I can't ignore it. I turn to look back at him, and he's smiling, just a little. "I'll see you around."

I try to smile back, and nod. I turn and walk away, and maybe I'll see him and maybe I won't, but it eases something, to know that he's willing, that I don't have to do this alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter should probably be rated as Explicit.

Preparing for the trial drives a further wedge between me and Dee. I can't talk about it, but it's what consumes my time and my thoughts, so any time we're in a room together, the silence is like an extra person, staring us both down. She tries, at first, to think of other things to talk about, but the truth is we don't really have anything to say to each other. If we're actually honest with ourselves (and each other) we never really did.

I go to Joe's bar to avoid going home. I don't even really feel like drinking, but I do anyway, sipping the rotgut that comes from the homemade stills, just to have something to do with my hands.

There's a lull in the noise, then a resurgence at nearly twice the volume that makes me look up. Sam is there on his crutches, and I wonder if this is the first time that most of the people here have seen him since the incident in the hangar. It's obvious no one knows what to say, because he's ignored as he makes his way over to the bar where I'm sitting.

"I'll have what he's having," he tells the bartender (whose name is not Joe), gesturing to my glass. It's handed over without a word. Sam settles himself on a stool, his crutches leaned against the bar.

"Hey," I say, because I'm not going to ignore him when he's sitting right next to me.

"Hey. How's it going?" He tosses back the drink and grimaces.

"It's going," I reply. "Same shit, different day."

"I'll drink to that," he says, reaching over and taking my glass, drinking what's left and grinning at me. It should piss me off, but he's one of those guys that's really hard to get angry at, or stay angry, at.

"You better buy me another," I tell him, and he motions the bartender over to make good. We drink in silence, but it's an easy one. We don't need to say anything, and with the cheering going on at the improvised Pyramid goal, it would be hard to hear each other anyway, even at this close distance.

"Do you play?" he asks, after a particularly raucous outburst.

"No. It was never my thing." I played as a kid, for a while, but I didn't like getting knocked around by the miniature Neanderthals who seemed to enjoy it.

"You weren't any good at it, were you?" he asks, with a smile that says he can see right through me.

I try not to smile back as I ask, "Why would you say that?"

"Because when people say something 'isn't their thing' it means they really wanted it to be but they sucked at it." His eyes are bright, clearing enjoying teasing me. I think for a moment he's trying to provoke me, but decide that everything I've seen and heard of him would indicate that he doesn't have a malicious bone in his body. He jerks his head toward the goal. "Unless you want to prove me wrong?"

I weigh the odds of humiliation (high, considering he's a professional, but he also only has one good leg) against the possibility of actually having fun for the first time in what feels like eons, and grin. "You're on."

He grins back and grabs his crutches, picking his way between the tables and chairs to the goal. "Make a hole," he says, and I wonder if he got that from Kara. People let him pass, and me behind him.

Maybe it's the fact that it's the two of us, and people don't know what to expect, but the noise level drops significantly, and at least half of the bar's occupants are focused on us. Maybe they're expecting some kind of grudge match, two men trying to prove their superiority even though the reason for competition is now gone. If that's what they're looking for, they're not going to find it, at least not from me.

Someone tosses him the ball, and even on crutches he manages to catch it. It takes him a minute to figure out how to balance on one leg and one crutch so that his throwing arm is free, but once he gets that sorted, he scores on his first throw, then reaches out with the tip of his crutch to drag the ball back over.

I bend down to pick it up, and take so long trying to figure out the right angle that people start to get impatient, shifting restlessly around the edges. Finally I give up on calculations and just throw, missing the mark with a resounding clang.

"You're just getting warmed up," Sam teases. "We won't count that one."

"What are we playing to, anyway?"

"Thirteen," Sam says.

I doubt it will take long, considering that we won't actually be trying to block each other's shots. It might even the playing field if we could, but there's no space. I might stand a chance of stopping a few of his, and with him one-legged and one-armed at the moment, it would cripple – no pun intended – his ability to stop mine.

"Starting now," he says, and takes another shot. It hits the edge of the hole and bounces off; one of the bystanders tosses it back. My shot goes wide, and we go back and forth, four to nothing after seven shots each.

"Here," he says. "Come here." He motions me over and nudges me into place. "Loosen up," he adds. "Do you ever relax?" The question, I'm pretty sure, is meant to be rhetorical, so I don't say anything, but the answer is no. I'm pretty sure I haven't been relaxed since... maybe since the night I was with Kara on New Caprica, but there's no way I'm going to say that. I don't even know if he knows about it.

"Set your feet like this," he says, trying to demonstrate, which doesn't quite work, and he laughs softly. "You know what I mean. Well, I guess you don't or you might actually be making a shot occasionally, huh?" He jabs me with his elbow lightly, and I wonder if maybe he is trying to get a rise now. "The trick is to set your feet, then worry about throwing. It all follows the lines of your body. You have to release the ball when it's going in the trajectory of the goal. Too soon or too late and you'll miss."

"Oh, is that all?" I ask dryly, rolling me eyes. I know everything he's telling me – I had to take physical education in school, too – but knowing and doing are two completely different things.

"Yup. It's simple. Even kids can do it."

I shove at him with my shoulder, not hard enough to actually knock him off balance. He laughs and pushes me toward the goal again. I set my feet like he tells me to, and of course I actually make the shot, like the universe wants to spite me, or vindicate him.

He reaches out and slaps my back. "See? Now I don't have to feel bad for winning, because I know you _can_ do it if you try."

Somehow he manages to say it without sounding condescending, so as much as I want to, I can't even get pissed. It's all in good fun, and for once I don't mind losing. On his last throw, the one that scores him his thirteenth point, he overextends himself and nearly falls. I reach out and grab him, pulling him back upright and bracing him against my body. "Careful," I say, my fingers tight in the back of his shirt.

He wraps his arm around my shoulder, leaning heavily on me as he gets his crutch back under his arm. "Frakking leg," he swears, the first real sign of annoyance he's shown.

I toss the ball to the next group of people and help him back to the bar. "To near-complete humiliation," I say, toasting him once we have our drinks.

He laughs. "Once I'm back in one piece, we'll have to find somewhere to really play," he says. "This is like one of those games to win cheap prizes at a fair." His arm is still around my back, resting on the bar as he turns to watch the new batch of players. "Y'know," he says, looking at me sidelong. "I really didn't know it was possible for a pilot to have such bad hand-eye coordination."

I bite the inside of my cheek. "Sorry if I had better things to spend my time on than putting balls in holes."

He looks at me like he's not sure who I am, then he starts to laugh so hard he almost falls out of his seat. People turn to look and I can feel the heat rising in my cheeks as I realize the double entendre. "Frak," I mutter.

"Don't knock it 'til you try it," he says, still laughing, and now I'm the one looking at him like I'm not sure who he is, which just makes him laugh harder.

I dig my elbow into his side and push, almost but not quite toppling him. He rocks back, his shoulder bumping against mine. "Admit it," he says. "You walked right into that one."

I try, and fail, to come up with a witty response, so instead I reach over and take his glass from his hand, taking the last swallow. "Now we're even."

"Do you want another?" he asks.

I consider, then shake my head. "Not tonight." It would be good to not provoke Dee by coming home drunk again. It's not every night, but it's enough of them to spark her ire. I'm tired of fighting.

He must see something in my face, because he asks quietly, "Where do you go?" When I don't answer right away, he nudges my shoulder and stands up. "Come on."

We leave the bar together, and I follow him through the corridors. He stops at a hatch and pulls it open. It's guest quarters of some sort, and he steps aside to let me in.

"This is where you're staying?" I ask, which is kind of an idiot question but I don't know what else to say or even why I'm here.

"For now. Until my leg heals and I start pilot training."

I look at him sharply. "You want to fly?" But he wasn't the one who saw her blown to pieces.

"I have to do _something_ ," he says, his eyes fixed on mine. "I can't just sit around and not fight."

"Yeah," I agree, although sometimes it doesn't seem worth it. Sometime you just want to give up and let it all go...

"Where do you go?" Sam asks again. "Your body is here but your mind is... somewhere else, and it's like you're looking past everything."

I blink and bring myself back. "Just thinking," I tell him.

"About what?"

Part of me wants to tell him that it's none of his business. We're not friends. We don't share anything.

But we do, don't we? We shared Kara's heart – I refuse to believe she didn't mean it when she said she loved me – and we share our heartache, our loss, our grief. We share the void she used to occupy. He knows me better than anyone else, in that way, and I know him.

"Lee." His hand is on my shoulder, his thumb against the side of my neck. "Where the frak do you keep going?"

He wears his heart on his sleeve, everything he feels in his eyes. Right now he's confused, worried. About me. I don't understand why he cares. But I sat with him when he was injured, even when he probably didn't know I was there, so maybe I don't understand either one of us.

"I was thinking about Dee before," I say. My voice sounds hoarse, grating, far away, but I try to claw my way back to the here and now, because he needs me to. "How it would piss her off if I came home drunk again. How everything I do pisses her off anymore." But she still loves me, or she says she does. I don't understand that either.

"Sit," he says, jerking his chin toward the bed. I sit. Like I said, sometimes it's easier not to fight. He sits next to me. "Why—" he starts, but I cut him off.

"Don't. Because I could ask the same."

He sighs, shifts, takes a minute to prop his leg up. "Fine. What else?"

"Kara." Because that doesn't require any explanation.

"It's supposed to get easier," he says softly. "I'm not sure I believe it."

"It does," I tell him. "It just takes a long time, when you love someone." I still think of Zak all the time, and it still hurts, but less now than it did. It's not much of a consolation. Pain is pain, whether it's acute or chronic.

"What else?" he asks, his voice soft. He knows there's something else, something deeper, darker. It shouldn't surprise me that he's good at ready people; he's a leader, and a good one.

"You said you have to keep fighting. Don't you ever want to just... stop?" I can feels his eyes on me, but I can't meet his gaze. I've never told anyone this, no one but Kara. "I was on a mission in the Blackbird. It got blown, and I had to eject. There was a hole in my suit, so I was venting air and I had my hand over it for a while but then I just... let go. We're trying to find a place we're not sure exists, with the last remnants of the human race and... You get tired of fighting. I got tired of fighting. But they saved me. I didn't want to come back."

I don't notice him moving closer until his hand is on the back of my neck and his forehead rests against mine. "I'm glad you did," he says, his voice choked. "It's easier, knowing I'm not alone."

"You wouldn't have known me," I point out, gripping his arm above the elbow. "It wouldn't have made any difference." Except maybe Kara wouldn't have rejected him after New Caprica. Maybe she would never have gone to New Caprica in the first place. Maybe... there are so many maybes it's impossible to catalog them all.

"Or it would have made all the difference in the world. There's no way to know. I'm allowed to be glad you're alive."

His face is so close I can feel his breath on my cheek. I don't know what's happening, what he wants or what I want, but when he kisses me I don't pull away. His fingers splay against the back of my head as he breaks the kiss, opening his eyes to look at me. One of us is shaking, or maybe it's both of us. "Are you?" he asks.

"Am I what?"

"Glad to be alive. Are you?"

I feel more alive than I have in weeks, months even. My heart is pounding against my ribcage and everything seems a little brighter, a little sharper. I surrender to the fact that whatever's going to happen will happen, and a sense of calm comes over me for the first time in a very long time.

"Yes."

"Good."

We just stare at each other for a long moment, forehead to forehead, and I think he's waiting for me to decide how this is going to go. I'm the one who's still married, after all, although he still wears his ring.

What's funny, or ironic, or maybe just plain frakked up, is that any guilt I feel is that we're together, not with Kara. I barely spare Dee a thought; she already thinks I'm having an affair. But Kara, if she was here, if she knew...

"What's so funny?" he asks when I start laughing.

"Just... Kara. If she was here, she would probably demand to be allowed to watch."

The corner of his mouth curves up until it's a full-fledged grin. "You're probably right," he says. "Question is, would we let her?"

"I'm not much of an exhibitionist," I say. "I don't need a crowd's validation."

"Hey!" He shoves my shoulder, knocking me back against the pillows. "I resemble that remark!"

I reach up and wrap my fingers in the front of his shirt and drag him down to kiss him. It might be a mistake in the end, but in the moment it feels right.

We break apart long enough for him to get comfortable, settling back against the wall that serves as a headboard. There's nothing sweet or gentle or romantic about it when we come together again, but that's not what I'm looking for. All I want is to be able to lose myself for a little while.

His fingers work open the buttons on my fatigues, which I wear out of habit more than anything else. I have civilian clothes for the trial, but nothing casual but my military gear. I work my fingers under the hem of his shirt to touch his skin. There's a part of me that demands to know what the frak I'm doing but it's drowned out by the part that likes the way it feels when his hands brush over my skin as he tugs off the baggy outer layer I wear.

I break the kiss, breathless, pressing my lips to the side of his neck instead. His skin is damp and tastes of salt. I'm tempted to leave a mark,

so he can't forget this afterward, but then he might be forced to answer questions it would be better for both of us he didn't. We shouldn't have to explain it to anyone.

He groans as my teeth scrape his skin and tugs my undershirts from the waistband of my pants.

"Yeah," I breathe back, my mouth finding his again. His lips part and our tongues tangle, and it's strange how different it feels from anyone else I've been with. Or maybe not so strange. Maybe it's because it's another man, but maybe it's just because it's Sam, who's not like anyone else I've known. The roughness of his hands, the strength in his grip is certainly a change from Dee, and in a way it's a relief. I'm not worried about breaking him.

I couldn't do this with another woman, but somehow this doesn't feel like cheating. There's no comparison between the two of them, and this isn't about love. It's not completely about sex, either. I think it's about comfort, and for me, at least, being able to step outside of myself, the narrow confines of my own skin and the persona I've created and am now stuck inhabiting. I'm trying to step outside of it, but old habits die hard.

I pull his shirt off over his head and run my hands down his chest. His skin is smooth, damp with sweat, and I trace the paths my fingers draw with my lips, until he grabs my upper arms and pulls me back up to kiss me, his nails digging into my skin. "Lee," he says again, his voice rough.

He doesn't have to ask the question. He doesn't even need to make it sound like a question for me to know what's in that word. It's in his eyes, bright and intense, boring into me like he wants to read the inside of my skull. It's in the tension in his hands as he holds me still.

"Yes, Sam," I reply. Yes to anything, everything.

He peels off my undershirts and tosses them aside, pushing me down and rolling half on top of me, clumsy as he maneuvers the cast. I wrap my arms around him, running my fingers up and down his spine, and feel him press against my hip.

If I had any doubts about where this was going, and if I wanted it to go there, they were squashed the moment his tongue drew a path from my collarbone up to the hollow behind my ear. "Frak," I hiss, threading my fingers into his hair as his lips meet mine again, and again, and again.

"Have you ever...?" I ask when we break apart to catch our breath.

His fingers hook into the waistband of my pants and he looks up at me, his lips red and swollen from kissing. "Does it matter?"

"No."

"Then why ask?" He undoes the buttons of my fly one by one, and I can feel the heat of his fingers through the material. He presses his lips to my shoulder as he works the material down my hips.

"Curiosity. Conversation."

He chuckles, his breath gusting against my sweaty skin. "Strange time for a conversation. I can think of better things to do with my mouth."

The implication makes my cock twitch, which draws a smirk from Sam. He slides one hand into the front of my pants, rubbing me through the material of my underwear. At the same time, he ducks his head, scooting down, and laves his tongue over my nipple, sending a bolt of sensation straight to my groin.

"Like that, huh?" he asks, shifting to do the same to the other one, then scraping the sensitive point with his teeth. I groan, reaching down to fumble with his pants, tearing at the buttons. He catches my hand, which means he stops touching me, and pins it to the mattress by my head. "Let me give you this," he says softly. "Worry about me after."

I'm not exactly going to say no to having his attention so completely focused on me. His thumb, rough with calluses, strokes the inside of my wrist. He doesn't actually restrain me; I could pull away if I wanted to, but there's something comforting in his weight on me, and being held in place when outside of this room, this moment, everything feels so out of control.

"Okay," I agree, and he brings my wrist to his mouth, pressing a kiss against the spot where my pulse beats hardest. I'm sure he can feel it. He lets go of my hand so that both of his hands are free to work my pants down my hips, and then my underwear after them.

His lips find mine as his fingers wrap around my dick and start to stroke. I couldn't separate the two sensations if I tried, and I don't really want to. The things he does with his tongue against mine translate in my mind to things he could do other places, and it's way too soon before I have to break the kiss, panting against his neck as I fight not to spill, and lose.

He wipes his hand on the sheets and wraps his arm around me. For the first time I notice that his cheek is rough, like fine-grained sandpaper, as it brushes against my skin, hypersensitive in the aftermath. He kisses me again, then settles back beside me.

I take a few minutes to catch my breath, tipping my face to kiss him now and again. I keep worrying that feelings of doubt are going to creep in, for him or for me, but they don't. The sounds that come from deep in his throat as I work open his pants and ease my hand inside only spur me on, and even though I've never done this before, it's not as if the concept is unfamiliar. The fact that he doesn't last any longer than I did is gratifying, or at least keeps me from having to feel embarrassed.

I clean off my hand and curl against him without thinking, one hand on his chest, feeling the rise and fall of it gradually slow. I let myself drift, eyes closed, trying not to think too hard about anything because I don't want reality to creep in just yet.

"Stay with me," he whispers into my ear. "Here. Now." _In the here and now_ is implied. I force my eyes open enough to look at him, his earnest, beautiful face. I nod my agreement, and he shifts to pull up the blankets, tangled at the bottom of the bed, to cover us.

"I don't want you to drown in those dark places," is the last thing I hear, and maybe I just dream it, as sleep pulls me down.


	3. Chapter 3

Consciousness comes back slowly, and for a minute I can't remember where I am. The arm wrapped around my chest is too heavy to be Dee's, and too strong. I experience a moment of panic, one single painful heartbeat, before I remember who it is and how I got here. I work my arm free of the blankets as carefully as I can to check the time.

Not even oh-six hundred, and I don't have anywhere to be for a while. Lampkin needs his beauty sleep, or so he says. I'm not about to complain about the chance to get a few hours of extra sleep, after months of sleep dep and stims.

Trouble is that once I'm awake, I can't get back to sleep. I try not to move, not wanting to wake Same, but the harder I try to keep still, the more I start to notice every little discomfort, and the more the need to move becomes overwhelming. Particularly considering I'm male and, well, enjoying the closeness of another human.

I must jostle him awake somehow, or maybe he wakes up on his own, but I feel him stir, and his arm tightens around me. "Morning," he mumbles. His lips brush the skin at the back of my neck, and I feel it through my entire body.

"Morning," I echo, although the concept of morning has no meaning in space.

"Time 's it?"

"Why? Do you have somewhere to be?"

He laughs softly. "No."

"Neither do I. Not for a couple of hours."

I can feel him smiling as he presses his face into the curve of my neck. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

The cast is actually more of a brace, and can be removed, at least temporarily, if we're careful. We're very careful.

*

Leaving is harder than I expected it would be, having to face the world after hiding in this cocoon of comfortable surreality for however many hours. On the other hand, it's the best sleep I've had in as long as I can remember, and I feel shored up, less raw than I have since Kara's death. I wonder if he feels the same way, but I don't ask.

"I'll see you around?" he says, his voice lifting just slightly, turning it into a question.

"Sure. Now I know where to find you."

He grins. "In case you decide you want a rematch."

I roll my eyes and shut the hatch, heading back to my quarters to get ready to meet up with Lampkin.

I could lie and say that I'd thought would already be in the CIC when I got back to our quarters, but the truth is that I had forgotten there was even a possibility of her being there. So when I open the hatch and see her glaring at me, it all comes crashing down.

She looks me up and down and shakes her head. "I'm not even going to ask where you were," she says. "I don't want to know."

"Yes you do," I respond, going to grab clean clothes and my stuff for the shower. "You're going being passive-aggressive about it." It's a low blow, cruelty when I should be begging forgiveness. I did just cheat on her, after all. Even with her looking ready to kill me or cry, though, I feel no guilt.

"You are a frakking asshole," she snaps, and pushes past me to get out.

I can't really disagree with her, and I have more important things to worry about. I get myself cleaned up and dressed and go to find Lampkin to see where things stand today.

That night, I go to the bar because I don't want to go home. I don't want to deal with Dee. I don't want to get into a fight over what I'm doing or not doing. The honorable thing to do would be to tell her it's over, but there's a part of me that can't resign itself to be alone. If I'm not with Dee, where do I go? Where do I belong?

I sit so that I can see the door, watching people come in, not admitting to myself that I'm hoping he'll show up. After a while I decide that it's better if he doesn't. If we leave together twice in a row, people might start to ask questions.

I get up to leave, but can't decide where to go. I still don't want to go back to Dee, but it's what I should do. I want to go find him instead, but doubt holds me in place. What if he has changed his mind?

 _Then he can tell you so._

I make it about halfway, then turn around and go halfway back, then turn around again. It's a good thing there's no one in the corridor to see or they might think I've lost my mind. (They might be right.) This time I make it all the way to his quarters, and find that the hatch is partway open. I tap it with my knuckles.

"Come in!" Sam calls from inside, so I push it open all the way and step over the threshold. He's sitting at a small table with two other guys, cards and whatever they can scrounge to wager in the middle. "Shove over," he tells one of them. "Pull up a chair."

The small space is crowded, and I'm not sure about being here with strangers who might recognize me.

But I can't spend my time fearing what people might think, and why would these guys have any reason to think I'm here as anything but a friend, unless we give them one?

I drag a chair over to the table, exchange cursory greetings with the others, and they deal me into the next hand. I win more than I lose, but I'm careful to keep from winning enough to upset them. Eventually they get up to take their leave, and Sam calls to one of them, "Going to see your girlfriend?"

He snorts. "If you want to call her that. Don't wait up." They depart, laughing.

Sam looks at me, eyebrows up. "Staying or going?" he asks. When I hesitate, he adds, "I can't decide for you," I so I know it's no use asking him what he wants.

"I want to be here," I say finally.

"Okay." He doesn't ask why, which should be a relief but there's part of me that wants to have to explain. I need someone to listen, to reassure me that I'm not doing the wrong thing. Guilt is starting to creep in and I don't want it. I'm not even sure there is a right here. It's possible every choice I make, one way or another, is wrong somehow.

"Hey." He snaps his fingers. "If you're staying, stay."

"Don't you ever get lost in your thoughts?" I ask.

He grins and shakes his head. "Nah. They're too few and far between to get lost in." We both know he's not as dumb as he sometimes pretends to be. He wouldn't have survived on Caprica, and then New Caprica, if he wasn't intelligent. He holds out his hand. "Help me up."

I take it and pull him up to standing, expecting him to reach for his crutches, but instead he just grips my shoulder, balancing against me. I wrap my arm around his waist to steady him, and he smiles down at me.

"Don't think," he says softly. "Let me do the thinking for a while."

I open my mouth to tell him that I don't think it's possible for me to not think, but before I can say anything he sets about proving that I'm wrong.


	4. Chapter 4

The trial begins, and it's harder to find time to get away, but more necessary, too. A trial like this, with so much hanging in the balance, with every person left in the human race having an opinion about what the outcome should be, can swallow you whole if you let it.

I hardly see Dee. When I can get away, it's to Sam, but even that doesn't happen often. When I do see him, he sometimes seems distracted, and I find myself asking him, like he still has to ask me sometimes when I start to lose myself, "Where do you go?"

He just shakes his head. I don't know if it's meant to be an answer to the question, or if he's just using the motion to bring himself back to reality. Whatever the case, he meets my eyes and smiles. "Sorry."

"Don't be." I tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. It's getting long, and it curls at the ends. "Anything I can do?"

Sam catches my hand and presses his lips to the inside of my wrist. "I'm starting flight training," he says. "Doc cleared me for it."

"That's good," I say, but my tone comes out flat. It's selfish, but I can't force myself to be excited about it. It will mean him moving into the pilots' berth, and seeing him will become almost impossible. It will also mean that he'll be out there, putting himself in danger. I know it's nothing new to him. I know that he did it all the time when he was part of the Resistance. But that was before. I didn't know him then, and then he was almost The Enemy. Now...

Now the thought of losing him tightens my chest and brings a lump to my throat. I've lost so much already.

"Maybe you'll get to boss me around sometime," he jokes. "When you're CAG again."

"Maybe I will," I agree, but it does nothing to ease the ache. I can't imagine having to be the one who sends him to his death. I can't imagine watching him... I squeeze my eyes shut, trying not to remember Kara's Viper flaming out, but it's no use.

I don't realize I'm clinging to him until he gently pries my hand loose. He doesn't ask questions, just lets me work through it until I'm calm enough to look at him again. He rests his forehead against mine. "I know," he says. "It's okay."

The next day, I go back to the trial and he goes to learn what it takes to be a pilot.

*

Everything seems to be happening too fast and too slowly at once. Every time I walk into the improvised courtroom. I wonder if this will be it – the day that we finally reach some kind of conclusion. It's impossible, sometimes, to tell if we're even getting anywhere or just treading water.

Colonel Tigh is put on the stand, and I don't even know, as the questioning goes on, whether he's supposed to be for or against Baltar. Theoretically against, but in the end Lampkin provokes him to the point where no one will remember anything about his testimony except that he was drunk and that he killed his wife and blamed Baltar for it.

I go to see my father, knowing that it's likely to end in a fight, but he is still my commanding officer, so if he tells me to come, I have no choice but to obey.

He's my commanding officer when I walk in, but not when I walk out. He calls me a coward for not confronting Tigh outside of the courtroom, despite the fact that I did not know anything about Tigh murdering his wife before he admitted to it in front of everyone He tells me that Baltar is a traitor and doesn't deserve a trial. I snap. There is only so much a man can take, and I reach my breaking point. I hand over my insignia and my wings, resign my commission.

"I will not serve under a man who questions my integrity," I tell him.

He looks back at me, cold and merciless. "And I won't have an officer under my command who doesn't have any."

I walk out, another door slammed shut, another bridge burned. First Zak, then Kara, now my father. Dee I cling to by a thread but don't want. What does that leave me? Sam...

Sam is with the other pilots, and I can't pull him away without rousing suspicion. I go back to my quarters where I know my wife is waiting because I don't see what other choice I have.

We don't talk much; it would only lead to fighting. I let her give me what comfort she can, which isn't much. I'm too acutely aware of every movement, every look. I can see the unasked questions in her eyes, taste the unspoken rebukes on her tongue.

I don't sleep well that night, and I don't think she does either.

Maybe it's lack of sleep that makes me ask to be allowed to question President Roslin. Maybe it's a need to prove to my father that I can be something other than a shoulder. Maybe I just want to make sure that the only thing left between us is a vast expanse of ash and ill-will. Maybe... I don't know. I question her, force her to admit she's taking chamalla again, that her cancer has returned. She hates me for it. My father hates me for it. And Dee... Dee leaves me over it. She packs her things and goes, and I try to protest that she doesn't understand, but it's futile. The words are hollow even to my own ears.

I start tearing the place apart, ripping the sheets from the mattress without being sure that we – I now – have clean ones to replace them. I find a box and start putting her things into it, whatever she left behind, resisting the urge to smash and tear and destroy.

I don't realize I'm not alone until I'm stopped by a pair of arms wrapped around me from behind, pinning my arms to my sides. I start to fight, fearing that it's someone here to take revenge for my part in Baltar's trial.

"Hey, hey. Easy."

Sam's voice, and I immediately stop struggling, my eyes flicking to the hatch to make sure it's closed. "You frakking scared me," I breathe.

"I'm sorry." He loosens his grip and I can feel his lips against my hair. "You were... out of control."

"She left me. Everyone thinks I'm some kind of monster because I'm not going to let them lynch Baltar. The act as if he's the only one who has ever made a mistake."

He presses a kiss to the hollow behind my ear, sending a shiver down my back. "What can I do?"

I look around at the mess I've made and sigh. The anger drains away, leaving me feeling weak and empty. I would probably have fallen if Sam wasn't holding me up. "Help me clean up."

He does, without question. We find clean sheets and put them on the bed, and everything else is restored to its proper place or boxed up. Maybe it's wrong to pack it all away so quickly, but it's like someone who has had a terminal illness finally dying. You've seen it coming, you've made your peace. All that's left is to nail the coffin shut.

It's almost certainly wrong to frak the man you've been cheating on your wife with in the bed that you were just sharing the night before. I don't care. I lose myself in him in ways I never could with Dee, and I sleep hard and deep and dreamless afterward.

In the morning, I wake up to him propped up on one elbow, looking down at me with his fingers tangled in the chain of my dogtags. I still wear them, even though I'm not an officer anymore. "What is this, Lee?" he asks, when he sees I'm awake.

I don't have an answer. I don't know, and I thought maybe he didn't care. I pull him down and kiss him hard, and the subject doesn't come up again. Later, I catch his arm as he reaches for the hatch to leave and kiss him one more time. He smile and I think I manage to smile back.

I get dressed and go to the courtroom. I don't know what will await me there. There is no way to prepare for the fact that I end up on the stand, trying to make them all understand why I don't think Baltar is any more guilty than anyone else. There is no way to anticipate that the trial will end soon after, and that Baltar will be acquitted, so when it happens, I have to take things as they come, feeling cornered and desperate. I'm grateful when instinct takes over when it turns into a riot, and we manage to get him out safely. What he does with his life after that is up to him. I'm done.

The fleet prepares to make the final jump to the Ionian Nebula. There is the usual lurch, and then the sudden cessation of motion (or at least we stop feeling it), and then the entire ship goes dark. When we get the systems back up, it's to find ourselves facing off against the Cylon fleet.

I do the only thing I can think of, the only thing that feels right. I suit up and go to the hangar, take a Viper and launch.

Another Viper comes up on my wing and I hear a voice on the comm. "Hi Lee."

I turn my head to look, and I wonder how I missed my ship getting blown, because surely it must mean I'm dead. "Kara?"

"Don't freak out. It's really me." She laughs. "It's going to be okay. I've been to Earth. I know where it is. And I'm going to take us there."

There's a battle going on, so there's no time to keep gaping. I turn my attention to the immediate threat. The Cylon fleet launches missiles at Galactica and the other ships of the fleet. We're ordered to shoot down the ones headed for the civilian ships, because they can't survive the attack if it hits.

Time blurs, and I don't get the sense that we're winning, but suddenly the attack stops. Just like that, it's over, and we head back to Galactica. I'm out of my Viper as quickly as I can manage, and throw my arms around Kara as soon as I get to her. Frak decorum, and frak the possibility that this could be some kind of trick. She's back, and that's all that matters.

Sam follows soon after, hugging her and announcing that he knew she was too frakking mean to kill. His eyes are fixed on her, and I know without either of us speaking a word that whatever we had, whatever it was, is over. We stand side by side, but there is no us anymore. We will stand with her, whatever happens.

Starting with that moment, things start happening more quickly than anyone can process. Kara believes she's only been gone for a few hours, but it's been months. Most people believe that she's a Cylon and this is all a trap, even after Cottle tests her and finds that she's human. My father offers me my wings back, but I don't take them. I've had offers to get involved with the government, and I think it's time to move on. There's nothing holding me here anymore.


	5. Chapter 5

Hours or days later Kara ends up in the brig after putting a gun to Roslin's head, trying to demand that the fleet change direction, because we're going the wrong way. It's a feeling she has; she can't explain it any other way, but she says we're getting farther away with every jump.

Everything is a mess, and I prepare to leave Galactica with mixed feelings. They hold a party of sorts for me in the rec room, to celebrate my 'retirement'. Dad is there, and I try to avoid becoming the center of attention, but Helo drags me up to take the shots he has poured and to make toasts. When I make my final one about absent friends, the dead are in my heart, but it's Kara that I'm thinking of most. She should be here, but instead she's in the brig. Sam is present, but he sits there stony-faced, and we avoid looking at each other. I don't know what he's thinking, whether he's glad I'm going or if he thinks I should stay. There's no time to ask, and would it change my decision anyway?

Before I leave the ship, I go to see Kara. She needs to know what I'm doing, why I'm doing it. She wishes me luck, and I wish her the same. I start to walk away, but all it takes is one word. Just my name, and I turn back and tumble right back down the well again as I kiss her. "I believe you," I whisper into her ear, because I think she needs to hear that more than anything.

When I let go, I wonder if it will be the last time. Her fate is undecided. I hope that if it all ends badly, my father will at least make sure that I get a chance to say goodbye. I suspect, though, that if it comes to that she'll force their hands.

Athena escorts me to the hangar, and I stop dead when I see that most of the crew assembled there. Helo commands them to salute, and they stand at rigid attention, waiting for me. I drop my bag and return the salute, then release it, and them.

I swallow hard and blink back tears. Am I really making the right decision? This place has become my home, these people my family. Can I really leave?

But I need something else. Something new. I told Kara that I felt like it was my destiny to move into the government, and I do. It's just harder than I imagined, seeing them all assembled, for me. Even Sam, in full dress uniform, which looks strange on him but not bad. We're all moving on, in our own directions.

I start to say my goodbyes, exchanging handshakes and hugs. He doesn't even look at me, though, when I get to him. He looks past me, shaking my hand but there's nothing in his eyes when I glance up at them. He's a blank.

I get to Dee, and she hands me a plague that has my wings in it. I put my arms around her, hug her and thank her, then joke that I guess she gets the house. I tell her I miss her, and in spite of everything, I will. She was good to me, and maybe even good _for_ me, even if I was never the same for her. She says goodbye.

The only one that remains is my father, and I embrace him, wondering if it will be easier between us when I'm not under his command. I guess I can only hope.

I get in the Raptor that's they've readied to take me to my new home, my new life as the Caprican delegate in the Quorum of Twelve. I manage to hold back my tears until the hatch of my new quarters is shut behind me and there's no one there to see them.

The room is small, but I don't need much space. In a way it reminds me of being back in the pilots' berth, with only a bunk and a locker to call my own, but it lacks the camaraderie. I'm alone here.

I need to get used to it. From now on, and for the foreseeable future, I'm alone everywhere.

Time passes. I adjust to my new life, throwing myself into it so that I don't have time to think about other things. I know from my father that he set Kara free with a ship and a crew to try to find Earth. Of course Sam went with her, so at least they're together. I try to find the thought more consoling than I do.

A month goes by. Two. I start to wonder – we all start to wonder, who know what she's out there doing – if she'll ever return. I don't think anyone expects her to actually find Earth anymore. All I want is to see her again. It's selfish, but the thought of losing her a second time... or is it third or fifth or hundredth by now... hurts so badly it makes it hard to breathe. Especially knowing that if I do, he will be gone with her, and I'll be left to cope with both of their deaths on my own.

I don't know if I'm strong enough for that.


	6. Chapter 6

Kara returns, finally, in a Cylon basestar. There is a civil war between factions of the Cylons now, and the ones that she brings back with her are looking for some kind of truce. They know how to find Earth, and they're willing to let us in on the secret.

It throws everything into a state of upheaval that keeps getting worse. How can we trust these people – not even people, machines – who have been our enemies for so long? They tried to destroy our civilization. They tried to wipe out the human race. How can we be allies now? How can we share a world with them again?

But Helo and Athena have managed it, haven't they? Their daughter Hera is proof that there can be love and understanding between humans and Cylons. But there is so much bad blood and distrust, it just doesn't seem possible to sustain on a larger scale.

On the other hand, what choice do we have, really? This may be our only hope.

It all nearly crumbles when the basestar jumps away with the president aboard, kidnapping her along with a large number of our pilots. The fleet, and more importantly my father, will never accept Zarek as president, and in the end I am sworn in as interim president while my father goes off to try and get Roslin back.

The Cylons hold some of our people hostage, refusing to return them until we give them the four of the final five that are currently in the fleet. One of them, the one they call D'Anna, or one just like her, I don't know and I don't care, comes to Galactica on a Raptor. She says that she's already in contact with the four in the fleet, and that all she asks is that we don't interfere with any shuttle traffic. I agree to allow them to leave if they choose to.

My father says that Roslin has commanded him to blow the basestar if we're not able to work things out, because if we lose the four, we lose Earth. I don't want to agree, but there is no choice. She's right. If they get back their previous final four, then they get Earth, and we're even farther from a solution than we were when we started out, what feels like a lifetime ago.

We decide to stage a rescue mission to get our people back. Kara will lead it, and I can't help wondering if she'll return from it. Is this really going to be the end of everything? I force myself to think past the terror, and the nagging feeling that no matter what decision I make, it's going to be the wrong one. I have to have faith, but there comes a point where it doesn't feel like there's anything left to have faith in.

So I put my trust in Kara and the fact that she's a damned good pilot, and even a good CAG. I put my trust in my father, who has gotten us this far. And I hope that I can trust myself to have made the right choices.

Next thing I know, though, I'm trying to pick my father up off the deck, to convince him to go on after Tigh tells him that he's one of the four. He can't do it, he says. He can't kill him, his best and oldest friend. I tell him I'll take care of it. I'm the president, after all, at least for now, and his son. It's not something I can just walk away from.

I tell D'Anna and the other Cylons that we have Tigh in the airlock, ready to be vented into space if they touch another of our people. I tell him that if he wants to save the fleet, he needs to tell me who the others are.

It doesn't really surprise me when he names Sam as one of them. Not because he has ever done anything that would make me think that he was anything but human, but because this is how my life goes. He looks up at me from the airlock, to where I stand in the control room, and my heart breaks. I can't do this. My father can't kill his best friend, and I can't kill the man who was, at least for a little while, the only comfort I had in the world.

Hopefully, I won't have to.

I contact the basestar again and let them know that we have the other two. Tigh told me that one of them, the president's aid Tory, has already defected. I tell them that if them alive, they need to stand down.

Instead, they arm their weapons. I don't know if they'll actually fire, knowing we have three of them on board, or if they're trying to call my bluff. I assume it's the latter. I order the airlock cleared except for Tigh, and I seal the doors. At least I'll have saved Sam, if I have to prove that I'm willing to sacrifice them to get my people back.

I tell Dee to give me the key. Tigh looks up at me and tells me to do it, and my fingers hover over the button that will send him out into space. Then Kara comes crashing in and shoves my hand away, turns the key back. "Those three frakkin' Cylons just gave us Earth."

It's a signal that only her Viper, the one she flew back from the dead, is picking up. We tell the Cylons to try to restore good faith. I grant Tigh, Tyrol, Foster, and Sam amnesty. I hope it's the right choice, and I wonder if I would have made a different one if it was not Sam. I guess it doesn't matter, because it is Sam.

I tell my father, and the entire fleet jumps together. It's our last hope; there's no point in waiting for recon. Gaeta confirms the constellations match, and that's it. We've arrived.

I watch as everyone cheers, hugging each other, celebrating. I jump up on the table because I don't know how else to direct the sudden surge of energy that bursts inside me. I climb down a minute later, embarrassed, but it doesn't matter. No one cares. Everyone is too happy.

As things start to settle, I wonder where Kara is, and Sam. I wonder if they're together. I wonder if she can forgive him for being a Cylon. I guess I'll find out.

Everyone wants to be in one of the Raptors going to the surface. Everyone wants to be one of the first to set foot on our new home. Of course I get to go. So does Dee, and Kara, and Sam. So we all know at the same time that our dream was dead long before we ever got here. The planet was nuked 2000 years ago. We've gone from homeless and hopeful to completely frakked in a matter of minutes.

And I'm the one who has to figure out how to tell everyone, because Roslin can't do it.

Dee finds me in the pilot ready room, basically hiding, trying to remember all of the faces that have been in this room, the living and the dead. Especially the dead, who may have all died in vain. She tells me that the Raptor is ready to take me back to Colonial One.

Somehow, she manages to convince me that I can make things all right with the Quorum and the fleet. She says that if anyone can convince them that we have a reason to go on, it's me. I remember, a little, why I married her. We did have some good times. Maybe it's the memories, or maybe it's just needing to not be alone that makes me stop and ask her to join me for drinks later.

When we meet up, I tell her what I told the Quorum, and we talk. She makes me repeat it several times, telling me she wants to remember every word. I drop her off at the officers berth, and she tells me that this is the most fun she's had in she can't remember how long. She kissed me goodnight, and I couldn't help wondering if maybe this time, if we really tried, we could make it work.

A few minutes later, she puts a bullet through her brain.


	7. Chapter 7

Kara finds me on Colonial One as I'm erasing one from the number of survivors. How many more will follow? How many others won't be able to take the disappointment, the lack of direction, the lack of hope? But she'd seemed so happy...

She says she needs to talk, but I guess the look on my face stops her. "You look like hell."

I tell her about Dee. She doesn't offer condolences or comfort, but that's all right. I don't think I could accept it from her if she did. Not when she was most of the reason that Dee and I didn't work. If not for Kara, couldn't I have been happy with her? Couldn't I have been what she needed?

But it's not Kara's fault that she's dead. Maybe it's mine. I don't know. She leaves not long after, and it's only later, minutes or hours, that I remember that she'd said she needed to talk.

I sit staring at the board for a long time. I can't work up the motivation to move, even to find my bed. I doubt I could sleep anyway. Every time I close my eyes, even just to blink, I see her face, smiling up at me, and then her cold, still hand.

"Lee."

I don't turn around, thinking I'm imagining things when I hear Sam say my name. I just stare at the board. 39,65. I can't bring myself to write in the zero that negates my wife's life.

"Hey." He comes up next to the chair and crouches down, resting his hand on my knee. "I heard about Dualla."

I make myself look at him, blinking back tears like I've been doing for hours. "Yeah." I don't know what else to say. I'm not even sure I want him here. Not when I'm not sure I deserve the comfort his presence brings, even now, with everything that we know. "Shouldn't you be with your wife?" I ask.

"Honestly? I thought _you_ would be with my wife," he says, but there's no ire in it, no accusation.

I open my mouth to respond, to demand to know if that's how little he thinks of me, that I would go straight from seeing my dead wife's body into bed with someone else, but he doesn't give me a chance. Anyway, my wife was still alive when I ended up in his bed, so it's not such a crazy thought, is it?

"I saw her come back on a shuttle, and I knew it had come from here. I had to do some serious fast talking to get them to bring me... probably for obvious reasons. They don't trust me. But I didn't think you should be alone."

I finally let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. "Thank you."

"Of course."

I let him make me leave the office and take me to my quarters. I let him put his arms around me and hold me when I finally break down, crying for Dee, yes, but also for the rest of us. We all lost something today. I let him help me forget everything but the closeness of another person for a while, and I let him sing me to sleep.

When I wake up, I'm alone. "Sam?" I call, sitting up to look around, but he's not here. I get up and see that there's a note on the small desk where my books and papers are stacked.

 _Lee,_

 _I'm sorry I couldn't stay. I didn't want to wake you – I figured you needed the sleep. Take care of yourself, and when you can, let others take care of you, too. I'll see you around._

 _Sam_

I fold up the paper carefully and tuck it into my jacket pocket, where it will stay close to my heart. I don’t know if this is the end, but at least he’s given me something to hold on to. I really can’t ask for more.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Keep Holding On](https://archiveofourown.org/works/213003) by [eternaleponine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine)




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